“But the Lord says, Forget about what’s happened, don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present, I’m about to do something brand new, it’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is, I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)MSG.

This is one of the most popular or used verses in churches today and even in our Christian lives, but for a moment have we paused to fully understand its meaning? While studying the book of Isaiah, I found it had a lot of verses that gave hope and this verse happens to be one of them.

In the previous verses (16-18), Isaiah was reminding the people of Israel the wonders God performed in Egypt during their slavery, and after all the praises rendered, God interjects and He’s like “Thank you! Thank you!!, I know I did all of that and even more, BUT you don’t need to dwell on those things anymore, watch out for the new ones I’m gonna do”.

It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the events of the past that something new and better walks right past us and we wouldn’t even notice. For the children of Israel the parting of the red sea was like the “best” or “greatest” wonder they had seen that even their generations got to know about it. God comes and says “forget all those things”, we may have experienced a miracle or breakthrough that we thought to ourselves, this is the ultimate and then your hear God say, forget that one, it’s nothing compared to what I will do.

I’m sure we will be like “God are u kidding? That was the best!”. The events in our lives may have been good or not so good, but if we dwell any longer on them, we will miss out on that “Brand New Thing” as the message bible puts it.

In verse 19, it says “Don’t you see it?”, so it is possible that God can be doing a new thing and we won’t even realize or see it because it’s either we are carried away with the past or we just choose not to forget it. God is a God of change, He doesn’t like when we dwell on something too long (Deut.1:6-7).

The past is gone, a “Brand New thing” has sprung up and it’s time to embrace it.